What Is The Story Mind?

The Story Mind is a model of human psychology that grew out of the development of the Dramatica Theory of Story, which describes the psychologies of characters. In fact, every story has a mind of its own. Its structure represents the story's psychology, its storytelling determines the story's personality.

In stories, characters portray our conflicting motivations, theme describes our value stndards, plot relates our problem solving techniques, and genre documents our moods.

By examining story structure from a psychological point of view, we can learn how to resolve our own problems and to find balance and equity between our reason and our passion.

Introducing the Story Mind

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

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The central concept in Dramatica is called "The Story Mind." It is what makes Dramatica unique. Dramatica says that every complete story is an analogy to a single human mind trying to deal with an inequity.

That’s quite a mouthful, but all it really means is that a story structure is a model of the mind’s problem solving process. It means that all the dramatic elements of a story are actually psychological aspects of the human mind.

This is not the mind of the author, reader or audience, but of the story itself – a mind created symbolically in the process of communicating across a medium. It is a mind for the audience to look at, understand, and then occupy.

Moreover, characters, plot, theme, and genre are not just a bunch of people doing things with value standards in an overall setting. Rather, characters, plot, theme, and genre are different families of thought that occur in the Story Mind, in fact, in our own minds.

In story structure, these thoughts are made tangible, incarnate, so that the audience members might look into the mechanisms of their own minds, see them from the outside in, and thereby gain an understanding of how to solve similar problems in their own lives.

Video Clip - Introducing the Story Mind

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What is Dramatica?

Dramatica is a theory of story structure.

Dramatica is also the name of a line of software products that implement the theory as a tool to help writers develop their stories.

The Dramatica theory is centered around a concept called the "Story Mind". It states that every story has a mind of its own. The Story Mind's psychology is determined by its structure; its personality is developed by the storytelling.

Though characters are written to come across as real people, structurally speaking, characters are no more than facets of the overall Story Mind, just as our own minds are driven by many conflicting motivations.

Plot represents our own problem solving mental mechanisms, made tangible in stories as the logical progression of events in the effort to achieve a goal.

Theme projects our value standards into tangible terms, and Genre captures the Story Mind's overall attitude.

The Dramatic Software is centered around a patented "Story Engine" which is a computer model of the Story Mind's psychology.

The dramatic elements that make up the Story Engine (such as Goal and the Main Character's resolve to either change or remain steadfast in its outlook and approach) are held together in a flexible network of interconnections, just as the aspects of our own minds are not independent units but continually affect one another as our thought processes continue.

As an author answers questions about his or her dramatic intent for a story, the Story Engine cross-references the dramatic impact of those choices and reports on how other dramatic elements are affected.

In this way, writers are able to see what would be appropriate and inappropriate choices for their stories if they are to remain consistent to their own dramatic intent. In the end, the Dramatica Software enables authors to ensure their stories' structures are flawless, complete, and fully functional.

Welcome!

Hi, I'm Melanie Anne Phillips, co-creator of the Dramatica theory or story and the Dramatica software. and I'd like to welcome you to a blog about all things Dramatica!

For more than a decade I've kept a web site on Dramatica at Storymind.com/dramatica but web sites are geared more to large articles and organized explanations., making it rather stodgy and overbearing.

In contrast, my personal style has always been more fluid and toward serendipity - following the Muse when an idea pops up as long as interest holds, be it a short trip or a long one. A blog suits itself well to this kind of approach.

So, while longer and more detailed articles may appear here (especially at first, as I import materials from the Dramatica web site) the purpose at hand is to create an open, expanding, free-wheeling exploration of the story theory and how to use the software tool designed to wield it.

For me, a theorist by trade, this is quite liberating. I hope you find it a good source of information and inspiration, and I look forward to your comments and participation.